


Deeper than Madness and Common Sense

by electropeach



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Liveship Traders Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb, Tawny Man Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Banter, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26696683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electropeach/pseuds/electropeach
Summary: Here's where I'll try to put any RotE ficlets not long or coherent enough to stand as fics on their own
Relationships: FitzChivalry Farseer/Amber, Patience Farseer/Lacey (Robin Hobb), Regal Farseer/Will
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	1. Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Fitz/Amber, setting up camp in Bingtown. This one is from earlier this spring, originally a part of a longer fic that never happened and left this scene gathering dust in my folders.

”Blue.”

”Yellow.”

”It’s not a field of sunflowers, Amber. Blue is a good, calm color.”

“Yellow might cheer you up.”

I glowered at her. “I am cheerful,” I growled, and was rewarded with a twitch of her lips as she tried not to smile. If I could make her smile, I would win.

I saw her steel herself, take a deep breath and cross her arms across her chest, moving her weight from one foot to another as she leaned against the doorframe. “Yellow.” Her face was determined, but her golden eyes betrayed her mirth.

“ _Blue_. Buck blue, to remind me of home,” I tried an emotional appeal. It was difficult, because the warmth of her golden gaze made being surrounded by yellow seem like a pleasant fate.

She pursed her lips, and something flashed across her face: my Fool, suddenly uncertain, suddenly wondering if I resented him for dragging me all the way to Bingtown, far from my home. Oh, I didn’t want that. I opened my mouth to say something that would take my words back, to say that yellow was fine, but before I could find the words, she sniffed and looked away, Amber again.

“Perhaps yellow reminds me of my home,” she suggested innocently.

I mulled over that for a moment. That was possible, I supposed. “Then paint the front yellow. That’s where you will spend most of your time, anyway.”

She raised a brow. “Seeing as it’s my shop, I should think I get to decide the color of the back room as well.”

Ah, we were playing dirty, then. It was true that Amber’s money had rented the two-room apartment, the front for her shop and the back for our living quarters and study, and she knew it rankled me. Despite her calmly pointing out that since she was the one planning to sell her merchandise here, it was only natural that she pay for it, I heartily hated the idea of her being the sole breadwinner of the household.

So I retaliated in kind. “Seeing as I need the back room for my translation work so that I can carry my weight, I should think I get to decide the color.”

“Seeing as you hate all things beautiful, I fail to see how you should have any say in how we decorate at all,” Amber returned as though that settled it.

I bristled on the outside, but could barely contain my glee. I had been handed the perfect opening. “I do not hate all things beautiful, with the possible exception of current company at the moment,” I delivered the backhanded compliment with enough vehemence that she had already opened her mouth for an angry retort before it registered. I had the rare pleasure of seeing Amber rendered speechless, and, for a moment before she glanced away from me, it was again my Fool looking up at me with an expression of surprise and a faint flush of color.

I had taken a step forward at some point, crossed my arms over my chest in mirror to Amber’s, I realized. We were both standing in the doorway now, she still leaning against it and me leaning slightly toward her, already savoring the victory I knew I had just gained. And sure enough, though she averted her eyes from mine and bit her lip as though to keep them still, I could see them beginning to stretch in a smile that was all my Fool’s.

_Brown_. _Brown is good._

Something bumped against my thigh and jostled me and Amber apart. Nighteyes squeezed casually between us, padded into the room and gave the corners a contemplative sniff before settling in the one closest to the hearth, claiming it as his spot. As we watched, he curled up comfortably, rested his large head on his paws, and heaved a content sigh. After a moment, he raised his eyes to meet our stares.

_Leave it as it is_ , he degreed. _What good is it to paint wood anyway, but to make the room smell bad? Wood is a good color._ He closed his eyes, then opened them again and lolled his tongue out in a wolfish grin. _Oh, sorry – were you enjoying playing with the Scentless One?_

I glanced up to find Amber looking at me with an amused look on her face. “Nighteyes says to leave the walls unpainted,” I told her. “Apparently, brown is a good enough color.”

She gave a little huff of laughter, shook her head and turned to go to the front room to resume arranging her shop to her liking. “I can’t argue with that,” she said, before throwing a wink at me over her shoulder, gesturing at her all-brown appearance of tawny skin and hair and brown robes. “At least someone in this family has good taste.”

I found that utterly unfair, seeing as I had just complimented her and Nighteyes had just overruled us both not because of any preference for a color but because he didn’t like the way the paints smelled, but then, “fair” was rarely in the books for me.

At least it wouldn’t be yellow.


	2. Sketches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patience/Lacey and a spring day in Tradeford. A friend linked an excellent list of fictional kiss tropes on Tumblr in the Discord group, and it really looked like a prompt list, so I figured, "what the hell, let's see what happens"! Prompting trope in question in notes after the ficlet.

“Hello, dear heart.”

Patience did not look up from her work, but only swept her hair from her eyes and leaned even closer the sprout she was sketching. The curly lock she had just pushed up immediately floated back down and settled on her nose. She blew at it ineffectually, gave her head a shake to move it from her nose (freeing several more curls to join their sister on her nose and forehead), and eventually tilted her head to the side, ear to shoulder, to make her hair fall away from her eyes.

Lacey bit her lip, but she could feel the smile threatening to surface nonetheless. “Hello, Patience,” she tried again, setting down her basket and starting to unwind her scarf. “It’s a crisp day, for so late in spring. The town was bustling, though, and I got warm quick enough shopping for my supplies.”

“Mm-hmm,” Patience responded, her hazel eyes narrowing at the plant as she tilted her head the other way. Lacey thought she rather looked like an owlet. Her lady was crouching on the floor in front of a low bench sporting seven pots with plants in varying stages of life, a tablet balanced on her knees for sketching, her rumpled gown trailing the floor, the lace of her cuffs stained with dirt. There was a smudge of it on her forehead, too, and a sprig of ivy and three mismatched feathers stuck into her rapidly unravelling bun. Discovered in her garden and stored in her hairdo lest she forget to put them somewhere safe, no doubt.

“And how has your morning been, dear heart?” Lacey asked as she walked by her lady, pausing to kiss her on the cheek which she presented to her by leaning her tilted head slightly higher, enough that Lacey didn’t have to crouch all the way to brush her lips against it. The lady of Tradeford smelled of earth and lemon and rosemary. As she straightened, Lacey deftly plucked the feathers out of her hair and, on her way to the hearth, deposited them in a vase already filled with similar finds. “Tea?”

“Hmm? Mmph!” The last was an annoyed harrumph caused by one stubborn lock of hair refusing to settle so it wasn’t in her eyes. Lacey watched her shake her head and blow on the lock in an attempt to dislodge it from its unfortunate location covering her view of the plant and tickling her nose. She had just shaken her head fondly and was about to come forward to pin the offending curls up from her forehead, when her ladyship tilted her head even further in a final effort to gain uninterrupted vision of the sprout, and promptly stumbled onto her side on the floor, tablet and sketch and pen spilling all around.

“Oh!” she observed, as though quite startled to find herself on the floor, propped up by one elbow. “Well, and my knees seem to have fallen all asleep! How extraordinary.”

“Yes, my love, that’s what happens when you spend the entire morning in one uncomfortable position,” Lacey agreed as she moved to help her lady up from the floor and steady her as she staggered. “Are you unhurt?”

“Absurd, I was perfectly comfortable,” Patience dismissed the notion that crouching in one position for hours might be detrimental to aging knees, patting Lacey’s hand on her wrist affectionately. “Oh, stop your fussing, my dear, I’m quite alright! Now, what’s this about tea I heard you say?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by "routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what they’re doing"


	3. Steam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regal Farseer/Will, early Assassin's Quest. All the dysfunctional relationship warnings inherent to this ship, so skip ahead if you would rather read about healthy, balanced relationships!

_My King._

Regal’s lips curled up in a lazy smile, and his head lolled back against the headrest of his bathtub. Slowly his eyes opened, his smile widening and revealing gleaming teeth as his gaze settled on Will. “Sneaking in on your king while he bathes,” he admonished, sounding pleased. “How impertinent.” His words were misty and undefined at the edges, the Smoke from the censers besides the tub and the steam rising from the hot water rounding them out and giving him an ethereal look. He lounged in his bath as relaxed and loose-limbed as ever, never flinching at finding Will suddenly there, as though he had known to expect him. Skill-linked as they were, perhaps he had.

Will nodded gravely. “You did ask me to report to you immediately if I had any news on the bastard,” he said out loud. “He lives, as you thought, my King. I felt him Skilling.”

Regal took deep breath. His eyes closed slowly, and it was like a screen closed over smouldering embers. Wordlessly, he raised a lax hand that had been dangling across the side of the bathtub, and beckoned Will closer. Will obliged him, stepping forward, and then, when his King gestured again, kneeling beside the bathtub, putting his face almost level with Regal’s. The water on the floor soaked his knees immediately, and the air, heavy with Smoke and steam, was difficult but intoxicating to breathe. It made the little hairs of Regal’s hairline cling in wet tangles against his skin, and decorated the rest of it with droplets of moisture clinging to every curl. They reflected candlelight like a net of precious gems.

Regal's fingers were tracing his jawline, leaving wet fingerprints in their leave. There was an ominous gentleness to the touch as they cupped his chin. Regal's lips were on his, barely toughing and tantalizingly close as he whispered his words into Will's mouth.

"Will you hunt him down for me? Track him down and bring me his head, so no witchcraft can set him haunting me again," his king murmured to him, his eyes now half-lidded and soft with the Smoke as they studied him. "I would be so very pleased."

_Of course, my King_ , Will sent his response, lighter than the tendril of Regal's Smoke currently curling around them. Regal shivered, and his wet fingertips tightened minutely on Will's chin. His other hand came up, carded through Will’s hair, dismissively discarding the ribbon that had tied it at the nape of his neck. His lips were suddenly flush against Will's, the kiss as hungry and demanding as he had expected. In contrast, Regal's hold of his face was curiously delicate, as though he were holding something very fragile, something valuable.

Or something with very sharp edges, something dangerous to hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by kiss number #27: bringing up the hands to cup the other person’s face while kissing


	4. Buttons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz/Amber, same AU-universe as Chapter 1: Fitz and Amber living and flirting in Bingtown, now featuring FitzChivalry Farseer's arch nemesis: buttons!

“You cannot be serious.”

“Would I joke? Me?”

“Yes, you would! And you would look perfectly innocent, just like that, and make me think you’re being serious.”

“But you have just stated that I can’t possibly be serious.” Amber’s golden eyes twinkled merrily as she delivered her evidence. “In all seriousness, though,” and she flashed me a smile that was almost coy, “you look perfectly handsome. Stop complaining and button it up.”

I held out my hands imploringly, the halves of the infernal button-up sleeves falling from them and hanging from my shoulders like shreds of a torn cape. My actual cape, a sumptuous sweeping length of glorious forest green, was already starting to feel too warm.

“But all the buttons!” I tried to beseech her to see my plight. Instead, she took it as an invitation to complete my embroidered prison by stepping forward and starting to button up the left sleeve. I exclaimed in annoyance and tried to shake her off, but she clung to my arm and somehow managed to finish buttoning it up as well, laughing all the while. Her shimmering gown clung to her legs as she stepped deftly in between my outstretched hands and started on the other sleeve. While I was busy being distracted by the way the silky material followed the curve of her narrow hips, whisper-light and airy as through she were dressed in starlight, she closed the trap around me and buttoned the final button.

“But Amber,” I said, lifting my right wrist, tightly buttoned into the confines of the embroidered sleeve, to stare at it forlornly. Amber seized her opportunity and adorned said wrist with a bracelet of silver and emeralds. My lady was in one of her moods, unstoppable and insufferably pleased with herself. That meant that my fate was inevitable, but not that I had to face it gracefully or without complaining. I scowled at her.

“But Fitz,” she replied sweetly, and suddenly stood on tiptoes to kiss my frown, her cool lips brushing first my furrowed brow and then my folded lips. I tried to hold on to my glare, but she gave me a knowing little smirk as soon as our lips parted. She still stood within the brackets of my arms, mere inches from me, and I already hated how long it would take me to undress from this contraption for all the time it took away from holding her against me, skin to skin. She was checking her earrings, and my eyes followed her gloved fingers as they made sure that each was tightly clasped and lingered on the one that I knew hid a small blue stone caught in a silver net within it.

Then those same fingers were reaching for mine, and she bestowed a secret sort of smile on me. “Later, my love. First we have a ball to attend to. Shall we?”

I sighed, and crooked my elbow as much as it would bend with all the buttons. Her lace-covered fingers slipped around it and settled lightly on my wrist. “We shall, my lady. But Amber, I may need some assistance getting out of this later…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by kiss number #35: when one person’s face is scrunched up, and the other one kisses their lips/nose/forehead


End file.
